Mmmm, wine from a polluted canal area

Joseph Mariano

BROOKLYN, NY -- New vineyards and wineries keep popping up around New York State with great regularity. So, not every venture is a major news item. This one is different.

Joseph Mariano, 73, a Brooklyn resident who has been an amateur winemaker since 1994, is cultivating a 50-foot grapevine a few blocks from the Gowanus Canal, widely regarded as one of the world's most polluted waterways. Thus, the local water table is very suspect.

From it, he has produced a wine he calls Vinum Nostrum, Latin for "our wine," a product he says is totally safe to drink.

You can get more details on his project from an interview with the New York Post.

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